Woman accused of stealing $32K worth of space artifacts, selling them for $5K

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HOUSTON – A Houston man claims a woman stole his valuable space artifacts and sold them.

A local attorney told Houston police that he hired 34-year-old Alicia Clark to inventory his private space memorabilia.

Court documents show she had stolen and sold his property.

Prosecutors said Clark sold $32,000 worth of space artifacts for $5,000. The sale, documents show, included an Apollo Omega watch, a blueprint of a Russian spacesuit, a Russian flag with signatures, three autographed photos of cosmonauts and Russian space documents.

All of the items, court documents showed, were returned to the local attorney. Clark faces a felony charge. As of Wednesday afternoon, she had not been arrested. Court documents showed she was last seen in Florida.

"It has the astronauts’ and the trainers’ names. So, it’s far more valuable because it’s much harder to get that,” said Dr. Carolyn Sumners, of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, as she showed some space treasures inside the museum.

You can find a lot of space artifacts at the museum.

Many are owned by NASA and are closely watched and protected. Space artifacts are rare and prized.

Sumners said that given Houston’s proximity to the Johnson Space Center, there is a lot of interest by individuals in owning space artifacts.

"Training material is valuable. Manuals are valuable. But something that actually was on the space shuttle … especially on Apollo … is even more valuable," Sumners said.